


an unquenchable flame

by infinitebees



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, When Will The Government Stop My Sinful Hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 02:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5851459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitebees/pseuds/infinitebees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>vita and cullen have a talk. the latter is rather terrible at hiding his feelings.</p><p>takes place after "in your heart shall burn." using a friend's lavellan, once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an unquenchable flame

Vita sleeps through the night and until evening of the next day; Mother Giselle is beside her when she finally wakes, and through the thin tent walls Vita can hear arguing. Dimly, she recognizes their voices: Cassandra and Cullen, louder than the rest; Josephine, her interjections quiet but powerful; and then Leliana, seeming to change sides by the second. Her attempt to sit up is met with a stabbing pain down her ribs that for some reason reminds her of fire, green fire.

“Please relax, your worship,” Mother Giselle urges in that odd Orlesian accent with which Vita is still not yet acclimated. Vita wishes they’d stop calling her that; it had been amusing at first, watching so many humans tripping over themselves to win her favor, but at this point it’s just tiring. Tiring, and a painful reminder of what a shit job she’s doing at saving the world or whatever. “Your ribs are broken, and the healers haven’t finished yet.”

Things are starting to come back to her now. The heat of the fire; the red glow of the Templars marching through the mountain pass; the face of a creature trying to be a man, his eyes burning straight through her. The urge to flee, to run as far away as she can as quickly as she can, is nearly overwhelming in the face of the memory. _No one would blame you_ , she thinks to herself. They had to know they were asking too much of her. But she’s still here – that has to count for something, she thinks.

It takes a good deal of effort and pain, but eventually Vita is able to sit up (much to Mother Giselle’s consternation) and ask, “What are they yelling about?” She feels useless lying about like this while others are working on, but she knows that she couldn’t do anything if she tried.

“Deserters. We have lost many since leaving Haven. They feared the thought of leaving their families alone in such times, and so they fled.”

Vita curses under her breath in elvhen; the priest pretends not to understand. “Creators, it’s understandable, but what are we going to do? We don’t even know where we are, and now –“

“That is what they are discussing now, Your Worship. Do not trouble yourself with it now; you must focus on healing if you are to lead us.”

“All due respect, Revered Mother, but fuck that.” She struggles painfully to her feet, ignoring the protests of both Giselle and of her own ribs, and makes it out of her tent just as the group outside is dispersing. They all turn to look at her as soon as they hear her approaching, but all of them except for Cullen seem to be following some unwritten protocol; Cassandra only nods briefly in acknowledgment as she passes by; Leliana touches her shoulder before retreating to her own tent. Josephine, meanwhile, gives her a warm smile and says, “It is good to have you back, Lady Herald.”

Cullen remains, standing by the fire. He seems rather lost in his own thoughts, and his shoulders are tensed more than Vittoria has ever seen. Then he notices her, though she’s been standing there a while, and she’d be impressed by the range of emotion that crosses his expression in the span of three seconds if she didn’t know with absolute certainty that she was the cause of it. Surprise is first, followed by relief from seeing her more or less safe, and then there’s concern because really she should not be up and about this early in her recovery, and finally – is that anger?

 _Definitely anger,_ Vita thinks as Cullen storms forward so he’s all but towering over her, and really it’d be intimidating if she didn’t know she could tear open a rift in the Fade and shove him into it then and there. As it is she just takes a step back and cants her head to the side, waiting for the lecture.

Sure enough, he jumps right into it. “What in the Maker’s name were you _thinking_ , Vittoria?” he hisses; if he notices the fact that he just called her by her first name for once, he doesn’t show it. “Do you have any idea how badly you worried us?”

“It’s good to see you too, Cullen. Lovely weather tonight, isn’t it?”

“For once in your life, Lavellan, can you stop treating everything like a joke? We _waited_ here for you, even though we weren’t even sure you were still alive. Cassandra kept watch all night yesterday; we told her we ought to move on, but she insisted we stay, for you, because we owed you that much. And maybe she’s right but _fuck’s sake_ would it kill you to get a sense of self-preservation?”

“Might’ve killed you,” Vita mutters sourly, kicking at the dirt with her heel.

(Unbidden comes the memory of him when she was turning to leave them. His mouth specifically, for some reason; the way the scar on his lip twitched as he said, “Maybe you’ll make it out alive,” and somewhere in the back of her mind a voice whispers _Oh_. There’s a thought there, or maybe a wisp of a revelation like a loose thread on the sleeve of a frayed shirt, but Vita doesn’t dare pull at it just yet.)

Cullen stares incredulously at her and Vita realizes at that moment that that had perhaps been the wrong thing to say. “If you had died,” he says, his voice frighteningly even, “what would we have done? I never would have forgiven myself for as long as I lived – which might not have been for very long, had Corypheus had his way. So much depends on you, Vita, all of Thedas does, elf or no. I can’t afford –“ His voice breaks, though he tries to disguise it with a cough. “ _We_ can’t afford to lose you.”

“I did what I thought was right, Cullen. And it turns out it _was_ the right thing to do – I saved as many people as I could. Do you think I don’t know how close we all came to death?” (She knows she’s shaking, and she hates herself for it; it’s what happens when she’s angry, when she’s upset, when she’s afraid – because she is, even now, all of it, even if she doesn’t quite understand why that is.) “My life is a small price to pay for the countless souls I did manage to salvage in Haven. What I did _worked_ , and there’s no sense in worrying about what _might_ have been.”

Cullen falters; Vita watches the fire in his eyes burn itself out in the face of her own indignation, and in the silence his shoulders slowly relax until he’s standing normally again, if a bit defeated. “I just mean to say that I need you to be careful. Um – that is to say, the Inquisition does. You’re right, of course. I know you did what you could; I should know by now to trust your judgment. I’m sorry. It’s not you I’m angry with, it’s – it’s this whole damn situation. And myself. We should have prepared for this. _I_ should have prepared for this. It won’t happen again, I can promise you that.”

Vita doesn’t know what to say to that. Or, rather, she does, but all the words run together and she can’t string a sentence together out of them no matter how badly she wants to. It isn’t like concern is new to her – she was the clan Accident-Waiting-to-Happen, and when she did happen she usually happened very painfully – but it feels different somehow, coming from this human she’d only known for a month. She had never thought she’d make friends with shemlen, and yet here she is sharing an uncomfortably emotional moment with one.

Seeming to sense the discomfort, Cullen clears his throat and looks off to the side, where Solas is pacing back and forth and shooting glares in their direction every couple minutes. “It would seem somebody wants to speak with you, Lady Herald. I apologize again for my outburst. We’ll plan our next moves once the elf has said his piece.”

“Right then, I’ll go see what he wants. And Cullen – we should do this more often, yeah? You’re fun when you’re all angry and concerned.”

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy the flush on his face as she left him there.


End file.
